The present invention generally relates to an editing method for picture information. More specifically, the present invention is directed to a recorded information editing method, apparatus and computer program for effectively executing an editing work while displaying an editing subject position in picture (video) information.
In television broadcasting stations for handling television program broadcasting and in CATV (cable television) stations for handling wired program broadcasting, for instance, program materials of picture information such as dramas and movies (films) are purchased from program producing firms, and then desirable programs are produced based on these program materials. While a program material is divided and a predetermined portion of the divided material is deleted thereby to reduce the program material, if necessary, a CM (commercial message) is inserted into a proper position within this reduced program to thereby obtain the edited program which will then be finally broadcasted.
For example, in the case that the purchased program material corresponds to a drama reproducible for 30 minutes, this drama is reduced into a drama reproducible for 24 minutes, and a CM reproducible for 6 minutes is inserted into this reduced drama reproducible for 24 minutes. Finally, an edited drama program (desirable program) reproducible for 30 minutes is broadcasted. To this end, the editing work is required to shorten the purchased drama reproducible for 30 minutes to obtain the drama reproducible for 24 minutes. In general, editing of a program material is called “role editing”. In this case, the expression “role” implies a portion of a program whose contents are continued and which is transmitted without making any interruption in the contents.
Now, a description will be provided of the editing method in the case that the program material is role-edited to produce a broadcasting program reproducible of 30 minutes by employing the conventional picture 15 (video) editing apparatus. In this editing work, as a CM to be inserted into this broadcasting program reproducible for 30 minutes, this commercial message is subdivided into 4 CM portions, namely a pre-CM, an intermediate CM1, another intermediate CM2, and a post-CM. These four sub-divided CMs are inserted into positions within a predetermined range of this program reproducible for 30 minutes.
FIG. 4 is a schematic block diagram representing one example of a general-purpose picture editing apparatus. In FIG. 4, in a VTR (video tape recorder) 50, a video (picture) signal is reproduced from a video tape on which a program material and a CM content have been recorded, and then the reproduced video signal is outputted. In a control apparatus 54, the video signal reproduced from the VTR 50 is inputted, and editing control information is produced based on the inputted video signal in response to an instruction of an operator. As this editing control information, there are information used to designate a position of a picture dividing point in the program material, and information used to designate a fade-in position, or a fade-out position. Also, the video signal entered from the VTR 50 is outputted from the control apparatus 54 to a monitor 52 and also to another VTR 51. The monitor 52 displays an image based upon the entered video signal, so that the images of the program material reproduced by the VTR 50 may be displayed. In the VTR 51, the video signal corresponding to the entered editing result is recorded, and further either the inputted video signal or the recorded video signal is outputted to the monitor 53. The monitor 53 displays an image in response to the inputted video signal, and also displays the images of the program material inputted to the VTR 51. It should be noted that the reproducing operations and the recording operations of the VTR 50 and the VTR 51 are controlled in response to various control signals outputted from the control apparatus 54. Next, referring now to a flow chart shown in FIG. 10, operations of the conventional editing method for performing the role editing work with employment of the above-described editing apparatus indicated in FIG. 4 will be described. It should be noted that all of the flow operations shown in FIG. 10 are executed by manually operating the control apparatus 54 while an editor observes the images reproduced on the monitor 52.
First at a step 802 of FIG. 10, the video tape on which the program material has been recorded is set to the VTR 50, and then the VTR 50 reproduces this program material. At this time, the time code signal is superimposed on the reproduced video (picture) signal, and the superimposed video signal is derived from the VTR 50. The reproduction starting operation and the fast forwarding operation of the program material by this VTR 50 are controlled by outputting the control signals from the control apparatus 54, for instance, in accordance with the instruction issued from the operator. In this case, while the operator observes the images which are reproduced by the VTR So and displayed on the monitor 52, this operator instructs the control apparatus 54 to control the operations of the VTR 50.
At the next step 803, the operator visually detects a cuttable (dividable) subject (nominated) position of the program material. When at this step 803, a proper dividable subject position is detected and this detected position is instructed via the control apparatus 54 by the operator, the process operation is advanced to a step 804. Conversely, when the proper dividable subject position is not detected but also no instruction is made by the operator, the process operation is advanced to a step 805. At the step 804, the time code signal of the detected dividable subject position is recorded by the control apparatus 54, and then the process operation is advanced to a step 805. It should be understood that a memorandum related to a summary of a scene content, and a picture continuity may be separately written down by the operator, if required.
At the step 805, the control apparatus 54 confirms as to whether or not the program material from which the dividable subject positions should be detected at the above step 803 is accomplished. When this program material is accomplished, the process operation is advanced to a step 806. To the contrary, if this program material is not yet accomplished, then the process operation is returned to the previous step 803 in order to detect the dividable subject positions of the remaining program material.
As a result, when the retrieving operation for detecting the dividable subject positions with respect to the program material from which the dividable subject positions are detected is accomplished, an editing work is carried out after the next step 806, in which the video signal is correctly recorded.
At the step 806, two sorts of proper role dividing points are finally determined from several dividable subject positions by the operator. That is, both a position of an IN point corresponding to a starting point of a role, and a position of an OUT point corresponding to an end point of the role are finally determined by the operator. In this case, the positions of the respective points are determined in such a manner that assuming that a time period defined from each of the OUT points (containing the starting position of the program material) to the next nearest IN point (containing the end position of the program material) is recognized as a deletion period, an accumulated value which is summed up all of these deletion periods becomes 6 minutes which are calculated by subtracting 24 minutes from 30 minutes.
In general, there are many possibilities that a range of a time zone when a CM is inserted into one program is previously set. At this step 806, the positions of the several IN points and the positions of the several OUT points are located within a predetermined time zone during which this CM is inserted, if necessary.
In this example, the CM inserting subject (nominated) points are determined in such a way that since a total time period of the program is 30 minutes, the pre-CM is inserted into such a time zone close to the program starting time (namely, after 2 minutes to 3 minutes have passed from the commencement of this program). Next, the intermediate CM1 is inserted in such a time zone defined by that approximately 10 minutes have passed after the program was commenced. Also, the intermediate CM2 is inserted into such a time zone defined by that approximately 20 minutes have passed after the program was started. The last post-CM is inserted into such a time zone close to the end of this program (namely, 2 minutes to 3 minutes before this program is ended).
At the next step 807, the reproduction for the video signal is again commenced from the VTR 50. At a further step 808, based upon the information such as the time code signals about the IN point and the OUT point determined at the step 806, the video signal and the audio (sound) signal of the program material between the OUT point and the IN point are deleted. On the other hand, the CM picture material is reproduced by the VTR 50, and the reproduced CM picture is started to be inserted at the position of the OUT point. At a step 809, the insertion of this CM picture is ended at the next IN point. During a time period of the operation of the step 808 to the step 809, the edited picture information into which the CM picture (containing sound) has been inserted is recorded by the VTR 51.
In this case, since the recorded pictures are displayed on the monitor 53 while the edited video signal is recorded on the VTR 51, the contents of the images can be confirmed.
At the next step 810, a confirmation is made as to whether or not the editing works are accomplished with respect to all of the material portions which should be edited at the step between the step 807 and the step 809. When the editing works have been accomplished, the process operation is advanced to a step 811. Conversely, when the editing works are not yet ended, the process operation is returned to the above-described step 807 in order to execute the role editing work with respect to the remaining material portions which should be role edited.
As previously described, in the conventional editing method, while simultaneously monitoring the reproduced image and the reproduced sound based upon the video signal and the audio signal produced by reproducing the program material, the operator manually determines the IN point and the OUT point, which will constitute the role dividing points. Then, the information related to these IN point and OUT point is recorded. For instance, the time code information in which the field period is used as a minimum unit is recorded. This time code information is immediately called during the dubbing operation. To determine such a role dividing point, the program portion where the content of the program is interrupted while the material is reproduced, the transit portion between the continuous scenes, or such a specific program portion is searched. The specific program portion can be broadcasted even when the CM is inserted into the content of the program. Generally speaking, there are very large amounts of picture information, and there is the variety of these picture contents, so that the role dividing points are manually determined by the operator. As a result, while the program material to be edited is reproduced during this role-dividing-point determining work, the operator is forcibly restricted to this role-dividing-point determining work irrelevant to such a fact as to whether or not the role dividing point is actually detected.
Also, in this conventional editing method, when the program material is reproduced, a person observes/listens to the contents of the reproduced program material while confirming that the image is synchronized with the sound, considering such a fact that the role dividing points are manually detected by this person. In this case, since the program material is reproduced based on the reproducing speed fitted to feelings of the person, namely the reproducing speed is limited to the substantially normal reproducing speed, there is no possibility to increase the detection work speed.
Japanese Patent Application Un-examined laid-open publication No. JP-A-2-184181 shows a moving picture editing apparatus wherein a dividable point of a moving picture is detected by analyzing sound volume related to the moving picture. Another Japanese Patent Application Unexamined laid-open publication No. JP-A-5-290549 teaches an adding apparatus in editing of picture wherein a picture information is divided with a dividing standard of an audio information such as a pause of music, a condition of existing a certain speaker detected by a speech recognition, a noise level, and a noise characteristic.
Furthermore, various conventional methods and apparatuses are disclosed by U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,467,288, 4,602,297 and 5,227,892, and International Publication No. Wo 94/16443 and UK Patent Application No. GB 2,245,748A (corresponding to U.S. Pat. No. 5,227,892). Detailed descriptions of these references are as follows.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,467,288 discloses a system for editing the digital audio portion of video programs, that is, the editing of audio data is aided by displaying any video information which corresponds to the audio data. U.S. Pat. No. 4,602,297 discloses that the video content of the television signal may be sensed at the beginning and end of each commercial of a multi-commercial group to determine whether the amplitude drop in the video and audio content actually represented a commercial, so that the system operates to prevent the recording of all of the commercial massages in the group precisely from the start of the first commercial to the end of the last commercial. U.S. Pat. No. 5,227,892 discloses methods and apparatus for editing a digital audio signal recorded on a record medium in association with a video signal. International Publication No. WO 94/16443 discloses a computerized multimedia editing system which facilitate audio editing, that is, to facilitate editing, a display system is developed which represents an audio track as a discrete waveform indicating the presence of sound energy above user-set thresholds. In the above described conventional methods and apparatuses there is no description of editing a video signal based on an audio signal. Particularly, there is no teaching of editing a video signal to produce a plurality of candidates, each of which has a suitable period, marking video information on the video signal based on the audio signal in order to insert commercial messages, confirming by an operator on a display whether the commercial messages are properly inserted, and deciding to insert the proper commercial message after has confirmed.